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It has been years that - at least in France - various media have told that the alleged alien autopsy video that producer Ray Santilli made known is a "known" or even an "admitted" fake. All such statements were misinformed and misinforming, in that it was implied that the fakery had been resolved not by experts winning a controversy but as if the hoaxers had been formally identified. As a matter of fact, the opinion that the video was a fake, as reasonable and correct it might have been, did not rest on formal identification of the hoaxers, and thus the controversy continued, based on many pro and mostly con arguments.
Of course, a part of the researchers had become convinced that the chief hoaxer was Ray Santilli himself. Others, as for example Stanton Friedman, had pointed out that Santilli had indeed told a number of lies. But there was no formal certainty that the hoax was organized by Santilli himself, and other theories abunded: maybe it was a genuine document. Maybe it was a fake video created by an obscure agency to discredit any notion that the Roswell incident had anything extraterrestrial about it. Maybe it was a real footage but of a deformed human being. Maybe it was a real footage of some previously undetected other intelligent race wandering on the Earth. Maybe the creature was a Japanese prisoner of war used in horrible experiments by the US military and thus they would rather the people thought it was an alien being. Etc.
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The Sky One TV channel in Britain showed in their TV show "Eamon Investigates" Ray Santilli now claiming that although he did buy real footage, the original footage was in such a bad condition that he had to shoot a fake alien autopsy video to have something that could be sold.
Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield claim that they were in Cleveland, USA, in 1992 trying to obtain rare early footage of Elvis Presley, when Santilli was contacted by an ex-US army cameraman who offered him to buy the film of an alien autopsy, for an undisclosed price. Santilli went to Clearwater in Florida to meet the cameraman, and discussed it with Shoefield only as he returned to Cleveland. Santilli said he examined the film and was convinced it was authentic but he did not have enough money to buy it.
Santilli claims that he had enough money three years later and thus bought the 22 rolls of film, but he and Shoefield say that when the film finally arrived in London, they then discovered 95% of the film had become "oxidized" and the remaining 5% was in very poor condition. and was almost entirely worthless. Shoefield adds that when he and Santilli opened the films boxes, it "smelled".
Santilli claims that he supplied copies of the film for free to broadcasters. Ray Levine, editor of the "News of the World" tabloid is interview and says that Santilli offered him the film for sale, that he offered £50,000, but that "there was a sort of a smoke and mirrors type of conversation between us and Ray Santilli, where he was coming up with all sorts of reasons why it couldn't be produced immediately". Santilli is said to have realized that the film would need to be verified by experts and details published in the paper before he would receive any cash, and he ceased to discuss with News of the World and decided to make what he calls a "restoration", no less than a fake video he claims to be based on his memories of the film he had seen "two" years ago and that he seems to consider to have been not "oxidized" yet, so that the money he spent buying the unusable real film is not lost. Santilli said that he wasn't involved in the world of ufology and his concerns were strictly commercial at the time.
Santilli says he hired a British sculptor and special effects artist named John Humphreys to create the fake alien, and Humphreys is shown telling how he used sheeps brains for the brain and a lambs leg for the hurt leg and also bits of chicken, and that propos such as the camera were carefully chosen so that they matched the 1947 era.
It is said it took him three-and-a-half weeks to create the "alien", that the set was a terraced house in Camden Town, London. The actors included Santilli, Shoefield, Humphreys, and one of Shoefield's employees, Gareth Watson.
A first shooting failed and they had to create a second dummy. Humphreys made no mention of there being two dummies on-screen, only Santilli did.
Humphreys says that when the filming of the fake autopsy was done, the dummy was cut into small pieces and burnt. Santilli says they were cut into small pieces and placed in plastic sacks which were dumped in different locations in London.
Santilli was quite insistent that "I didn't fake alien footage... no, we restored it", and even compared it with the restoration of the Mona Lisa and the Sistine chapel.
Santilli says that he also faked the cameraman's interview film, under pressure, after the alien autopsy was shown on TV: the alleged cameraman was someone they simply took off the street and had him read a script in a motel room in Los Angeles. Santilli nevertheless insists that the real cameraman exists but refused to give its name.
Both Santilli and Shoefield continually insist that although the video they sold is a "restoration" made by John Humphreys, there existed a "real" film that they saw and inspired them.
Santilli claims that some 5% of the authentic film are mixed with the restoration but, when asked what parts it would be, both Santilli and Shoefield claim that they cannot remember.
At one point, Santilli shows bits of a celluloid film, holding carelessly in his bare hands, although he claimed it was so fragile, what he claims to be few of the "authentic" frames. Santilli says that the rest of the "real" film is kept by an anonymous person in Germany. No image of the claimed authentic film is shown at any time.
John Humphreys is also said to be one the fake surgeons in the video, in which also played Santilli, Shoefield and a former employee of Shoefield named Gareth Watson acting behind the window.
Santilli says that the video with the debris of the alleged alien spacecraft is also a "restoration" by John Humphreys, and he shows some "i-beam" he brought. John Humphrey says he built the debris according to stills of the "real" film although they were "not expert enough" to know what the original hieroglyphics were and the stills were not clear enough to allow a certain recreation.
About the six fingers of the creature, and the six fingered panel among the "debris" video, Santilli said it was were the result of "artistic license.".
U-K ufologist Philip Mantle appears in the show, and his opinion is that after the claims made by Santillli, he is certain that the alien autopsy video is entirely a fake. He says that Santilli and Shoefield had little credibility before, but now they have none.
Yet another show on the alleged alien autopsy is announced, to be shown on Channel Five in the UK and the content of which is not disclosed.
Simultaneously, a movie opens in British theaters, a fiction in which the TV actors Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly play the role of Santilli and Shoefield, who are the executive producers of the movie, the plot being a comedy version of their hoax.
John Humphreys has a website at: www.john-humphreys.com
The official website for the "Alien Autopsy" comedy is at http://alienautopsy.frankiandjonny.com
